


Finding His Place

by idrilhadhafang



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Poe Dameron, Angst with a Happy Ending, Betrayal, Drunk Poe Dameron, Eventual Happy Ending, Evil Snoke, Fix-It, Good Kylo Ren, Kylo Ren Angst, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Kylo Ren Redemption, Love/Hate, M/M, Minor Jessika Pava/Paige Tico, Mother-Son Relationship, Past Gaslighting By Snoke, Past Torture, Poe Dameron Needs A Hug, Poe Dameron/Kylo Ren Angst, Reconciliation, Remorseful Kylo Ren, Sad Kylo Ren, Slow Burn Poe Dameron/Kylo Ren, Space Mom Leia Organa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-12 11:40:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19131292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: Kylo leaves the First Order when his father asks, but redemption and belonging are a work in progress and the journey doesn’t end there.





	1. I’ll Be Good

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing. 
> 
> Author’s Notes: I swear I am going to get this done if it kills me. Inspired by “I’ll Be Good” by Jaymes Young. Which is so redeemed!Kylo it’s not funny.

The moment that Poe saw Ben Solo coming out of the Falcon with Han Solo, he almost dropped everything and ran to him, BB-8 in tow. It was when he looked closer that he swore that he froze. 

Ben was there all right. Dressed in Kylo Ren’s clothes. He knew those clothes. Knew them all too well. And the lightsaber at his hip — it was Kylo’s lightsaber. Strange, bizarre crossguards and everything. 

He met Kylo Ren’s eyes in that moment. The maelstrom was already building up in him, a maelstrom of  _how could he_ and  _that creature_ and plenty more. 

Ben had done this. All of it. It couldn’t be. Poe would have fared better if it were a stranger. At least then he wouldn’t have felt like he had been socked in the gut. 

At least then he would have expected it. 

Ben...

Kylo Ren didn’t seem to be able to look at him. He looked away. Poe felt a vindictive sort of satisfaction. Serves him right, he thought. He’s the one who did something wrong. 

Footsteps. Jessika came up to him, having reunited with her girlfriend, Paige Tico. “Poe,” she said. “That’s...Ben? That monster’s Ben?”

Poe nodded. 

Jessika swore. “How could he?” she said. “He had a whole family who gave a damn about him, he had you, and he just threw it away...”

”Yeah.” Maybe Poe wasn’t important to him somehow. Maybe he wasn’t enough. Maybe he’d just tried and tried and it wasn’t enough. 

Poe didn’t know. 

***

They met with General Organa later. She...well, she actually looked like she was about to cry. “Ben,” she said, “I knew that you’d come home.”

”Did you?” How could she have had so much faith in him when she had —

“I knew you still had Light left in you.”

Tell that to the rest of the Resistance, Kylo thought. 

“Why now?” Kylo said. His voice cracked. “When I was being...mentally raped by Snoke, you just let it happen. You just let him use me. You didn’t come for me. Why now?”

General Organa looked pained. Then, “I’m so sorry, Ben. If...if I knew where to find him...”

”You had the Force!” Kylo said. “You were one of the most powerful Force users who ever trained, and you couldn’t find him?”

”I’ve never been perfect. There were times when...times when I thought it was all in my head. Snoke was good at that. Making you feel crazy.”

Kylo relaxed slightly. He supposed that that was true enough. Snoke really was good at things like that. Gaslighting, it was apparently called. 

General Organa continued. "I wasn’t completely good to you, Ben. I’m sorry.”

Of all the things he expected, her admitting it wasn’t one of them. 

“You didn’t kill anyone,” Kylo said. 

“I had my share.”

”You don’t know half of what I was willing to do to find the map.”

”I hate what you’ve done. But...the truth is, Ben, your child never stops being your child. No matter what they do.”

The tears pricked at his eyes, hot and wet. 

“I did miss you, Ben.” General Organa said. 

And maybe that was what Kylo Ren needed to hear all along. 

***

Her son left with the others, and General Leia Organa was left alone. The truth was, her feelings about her son’s actions were...complicated. She hated what he’d done to Poe, to the village on Tuanul, and plenty of other things. 

But looking at Ben, she couldn’t stop seeing a boy who told anyone who’d listen he wanted to be a pilot like his father. A boy who had nightmares, frequent ones too. Even when she feared that he would fall, or be unable to control his abilities, she hadn’t loved him any less. Not truly. 

They couldn’t change the past. But he was here, now, and perhaps she could make things right. 


	2. Weak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo tries to apologize. Poe has none of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Next morning was foggy. After waking from a nightmare where Ben was the one torturing him, Ben was the one hurting him, Poe sat at breakfast, picking at his food, unwilling to meet anyone’s eyes. Was he going to have to run away from every memory of Ben? He couldn’t help but wonder, and he couldn’t help but be afraid. 

He didn’t want to be haunted by Ben forever. Stars willing, he didn’t. Even as Finn gently, lightly coaxed him to eat, he thought that he heard Han talking to Kylo — to the monster. 

“Ben? Come on, kiddo, you’ve gotta eat something.”

No answer. Poe wasn’t ordinarily glad to think of others in pain, but after what Kylo did to the village on Tuanul, to Poe, to his family and more...pain was too good for him. Poe could feel his fists clenching and unclenching, wondering if this time Kylo couldn’t stop the blaster bolt, if this time he could just shoot —

And yet that was also Ben Solo. He hated Kylo Ren, loved Ben Solo. What the kriff could anyone make of that? 

“Poe?” Snap, this time. “You okay?”

“I...need some fresh air.”

That wasn’t a lie. He needed to run, as fast as he could, away from this monster...

The monster joined him later. The monster wearing Ben Solo’s face, actually having the gall to look like a kicked kath hound. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

”If it’s ‘sorry’, we’re way past that.” A beat. “I wish I’d never met you.”

Kylo actually had the gall to look pained. Hurt, even. "What I did was...inexcusable. To you, for example.”

”Yeah. That’s one way to put it. You broke into my head, Ben,” Poe said, “You...kriff, when I saw who you really were, it was like getting hit by a speeder.”

Silence. Was Kylo rummaging around in his mind right now? There wasn’t really anything else he could take from Poe now, in relation to the two of them. 

“You’re a traitor. No, not just a traitor, a coward. Only a kriffing coward would start in on a defenseless civilian girl like that, or slaughter unarmed Jedi, or any of that. I thought...dear stars, I can’t believe you, this thing, was my friend.”

And more, Poe thought. More than that. 

“And then you had to waltz back to the base like everything’s just fine,” Poe said. “Maybe your dad forgives you. Maybe the General forgives you. But they shouldn’t.”

He didn’t dare to think the three most important words between them both right now. Kylo would no doubt just snatch them from his mind. 

“I don’t know what happened to you out there, but you’re not sentient anymore. You’re just a thing. A coward in a mask.”

Kylo didn’t even flinch. Instead, he said, “And you’re better? How many people have you killed? I’m sure FN-2187 will be very pleased when he hears you shot his friend in cold blood...”

”His name,” Poe snapped, “Is Finn.”

”Either way.” Kylo sighed as he spoke. “I came here to apologize, but I suppose it doesn’t matter what I meant to say. You’d still hate me.”

”No stang I do. I always knew you were weak, Ben.”

Kylo actually looked struck, and Poe hated himself and kept digging. “Couldn’t win against your own monsters from the start. You didn’t even try.”

Kylo’s eyes — they actually looked wide. Luminous. Then, “Yes. I was weak. And I didn’t try.”

He left. Poe thought that he vaguely heard the sound of Kylo kicking something on his way out. Kriffing brat, Poe thought. He had everything, even had an uncle as cool as Luke Skywalker, had me, who loved him, and he threw it away. 

***

 _I always knew you were weak, Ben._  

Kylo could not deny it. Weak. Weak where Poe was strong. Poe had simply been strong enough to resist the temptation of the First Order, assuming there was any temptation to begin with. Ben Solo had been disgustingly malleable, like clay. Another reason to hate him. 

He couldn’t resist kicking a stray bit of something as he walked past it. If it were possible, he would have slashed something up, but that was another area where he was weak and Poe was strong. Maybe Snoke was right. 

Dear stars, Snoke was probably right. 

“What happened back there?” Han Solo, this time. He walked up in a hurry to Kylo, and Kylo was grateful in that moment. 

“It didn’t work.” Kylo didn’t cry, but he wanted to. Weak, so weak...

”What?”

”Apologizing. He’s angry. And he’s...right to be.”

”Right.” Han took a deep breath. “I don’t understand why you did that to Poe. I mean, I know you, Ben. When you were a kid, you wouldn’t have hurt a fly let alone him.”

Kylo told him. Told him about Snoke. How he had pleaded with Snoke to consider alternatives. How Snoke had tortured him with Force Lightning until the pain was so great that he started wishing, for a moment, that Poe was suffering instead of him. Or that Snoke was dead. Mostly the latter. 

And afterwards, the humiliation and hate. The rage. He carefully omitted the detail about Luke Skywalker; he didn’t need his own father calling him a liar. 

Han nodded. “I knew there was something wrong with the idea of you intentionally hurting someone.”

”I suppose,” Kylo said. “I could have argued more. I could have been stronger. I could have left earlier. I...”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. Han hugged him in that moment and Kylo nestled close to him. 

***

They had the funeral for the pilots who didn’t return from Starkiller Base. During the reception, Poe drank. He doubted he wanted to stop drinking. Run as far away from memories of Ben Solo, of Kylo Ren, as possible. It would have been easy to picture him as a monster from the start, and yet...

”Poe,” Jess said, “You’re drinking too much.”

”Not tha’ much.” Poe said. Okay, his words sounded a little funny, but that didn’t mean anything. Not really.

”Drinking isn’t gonna ease the pain,” Jess said. 

“Easy for you to say.”

Jess furrowed her brows. “What is wrong with you? Poe Dameron wouldn’t be this snappish.”

”I will tell you,” Poe forced out, “When I’ve had enough. Don’ bother me, Pava; ‘M okay.”

By now, more than a few curious stares looked his way. He got up, staggering a little. The room seemed to spin around him, the ground swam up to meet him...

...and everything went black. 

 


End file.
